Publications
Publications
- May 2024
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Relational Attributions for One’s Own Resilience Predict Compassion for Others
By: Rachel Ruttan, Ting Zhang, Sivahn Barli and Katherine DeCelles
Abstract
Existing work on attribution theory distinguishes between external and internal attributions (i.e., “I overcame adversity due to luck” vs. “my own effort”). We introduce the construct of relational resilience attributions (i.e., “due to help from other people”) as a critical, but overlooked form of external attribution that predicts compassion toward others. We first document the presence of internal, relational (social external), and situational (nonsocial external) resilience attributions among people who have overcome unemployment, showing the predominance of internal attributions (Study 1). Next, we show that relational attributions uniquely predict compassion toward people struggling to overcome a range of challenges, including losing a loved one (Study 2), quitting smoking (Study 3a), workplace bullying (Study 3b), divorce (Study 4a), and pandemic survival (Study 4b). To examine causality and the malleability of relational attributions, we experimentally induce relational attributions among ex-smokers (Study 5), advanced degree holders (Study 6), and those who completed a fatiguing task (Study 7). We further find that gratitude is one critical link between one’s own relational attributions and compassion toward others. Despite the prevailing tendency for people to make internal attributions for their resilience, forming relational attributions is positively associated with greater compassion for others struggling to endure adversity.
Keywords
Citation
Ruttan, Rachel, Ting Zhang, Sivahn Barli, and Katherine DeCelles. "Relational Attributions for One’s Own Resilience Predict Compassion for Others." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 126, no. 5 (May 2024): 818–840.